


I Don't Make Sense Without You

by earthinmywindow



Series: Dream Runners [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Family Secrets, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Sibling Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 13:33:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1057355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthinmywindow/pseuds/earthinmywindow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At thirteen, Annie Leonhart has just lost the father who was center of her world. Already struggling with the prospect of a future without him, her world is knocked further off kilter when her brother, Reiner, reveals a long-kept family secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Don't Make Sense Without You

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second part of my contemporary Attack on Titan AU, Dream Runners. If I manage to write the whole series, it will have 7 or 8 parts total. The first three are character establishing, with later parts moving the series in a different direction that is set up at the end of part three. I hope I get to writing them. I am really slow. And I hope this isn't boring. Thank you to all who read the first part. This one focuses on Annie and the next one will be Bertolt.

The worst day of Annie Leonhart’s life opened to the strains of _Wonderwall_ fading in and out over the patchy reception of her ancient clock-radio.  
  
 _“And all the roads that lead you there are winding. And all the lights that light the way are blinding.”_  
  
Groaning, she burrowed deeper under her bedspread and tightened the fetal curl of her body. She didn’t want to wake up, not today or ever again. Night after night after night—had it really only been three?—she lay awake in this bed, begging sleep to relieve her of the crushing weight of reality, but it wouldn’t come. It was only with the aid of two large Percocet tablets, pilfered from an old prescription bottle in Dad’s sock drawer, that she’d finally achieved that heavy, dreamless sleep she wished could last forever. But it couldn’t last forever. Only death lasts forever, and she was alive. Alive and now awake, thrust back into the darkest part of the nightmare.  
  
 _“I said maybe you’re gonna be the one that saves me. And after all, you’re my wonderwall.”_  
  
She stayed inside her comfortless cocoon until the song wound to its end and was replaced by the nasal voice of the radio host.  
  
 _“That was a classic hit by Oasis on this Throwback Thursday. Looks like it’s going to be another record-breaking scorcher today. I wouldn’t be surprised if we reach triple-digits before noon, so if you have to be outside...”_  
  
Annie’s hand probed clumsily for the off switch and wound up knocking the clock-radio to floor with a dull plastic _thump_. But at least she’d managed to shut the damn thing up first.  
  
A bloody sunrise lasered through the window blinds, painting her room with hot red-orange stripes and glinting off her martial arts trophies in a way that made it look like the little figures’ attacking hands and feet were aflame. Karate, judo, muay thai, krav maga, boxing—a shelf that stretched the entire length of the room crammed full of trophies and medals, nothing less than first place. She had won them all for him and displayed them with pride. Now they just looked like shiny garbage.  
  
The dress was on a wire hanger hooked over the door to the closet, an unembellished sleeveless black shift. Mom had picked it out for her at the mall yesterday; she’d wanted Annie to come with her, but a mother-daughter shopping trip was a daunting enough prospect under ideal conditions so there was no way Annie could have handled it for this miserable task.  
  
Mom’s voice, sharp even from the other side of the bedroom door, ruptured Annie’s coveted isolation like an auger.  “Annie, I heard your alarm go off so I know you’re awake. Come out and eat breakfast.”  
  
There was no way she could avoid what was in store. The day she most wanted to stay locked in her room like a recluse was the one day she couldn’t. Marshaling all the social energy in her small reserve, Annie lurched out of bed, put on what she considered a neutral expression, and headed out to face her family.  
  
Finding Reiner already at the kitchen table after a lifetime of consistent AM tardiness felt strange and wrong to Annie. But then, everything about this week felt strange and wrong. Strange and wrong were the norm now. There was an opened box from a chain bakery in the middle of the table and Reiner was lifting an everything bagel, spread thickly with cream cheese, to his mouth when Annie’s eyes met his. A gentle smile settled on his features and he said, “Good morning, Annie.”  
  
“Hey,” she said softly. The corners of her lips twitched; she wanted to return her brother’s tender expression, but her muscles had lost their memory.  
  
Mom was still dressed in her bathrobe, bouncing like a hornet in a jar around the apartment as she hunted for something—her muttering implied a lost earring—but when she saw Annie she immediately changed targets, closing in on her with clipped steps. “Annie, did you take the pills that were in your father’s dresser?” She’d posed herself imperiously in front of her daughter, hands on her hips and a thin-lipped frown on her face. No morning greeting or kindly queries about how Annie felt first, the woman leapt right into the interrogation. Accusation, really, since her tone clearly assumed guilt.  
  
Annie slid her gaze away from her mother’s face. “Well, it’s not like he’s going to need them where he is now,” she said. It was the wrong thing to say and she knew it, but the words slipped from her mouth like a defensive gush of venom.  
  
Mom prefaced her response with a long, hissing inhalation, as if to cool the internal fire Annie’s comment had stoked. “Do not do this, Annie. Not today. I cannot handle you being a smartass today.” Her jaw scarcely moved to form the words and they came out sounding tight, barely containing her anger.  
  
“Sorry,” Annie mumbled. Once again, she had to look away, unable to bear the sight of Mom’s eyes so close up, red-rimmed and swollen-lidded and coated with an impasto of makeup that highlighted their wretchedness rather than concealed it.  
  
“I’m serious, young lady,” Mom said. “And do not take any more of those painkillers, you hear me? The last thing I need is a thirteen-year old drug addict on my hands. Now sit down and eat something.”  
  
Annie did as she was told. She wasn’t hungry. Or maybe she was, but her brain had become disconnected from her body’s physical needs. Either way, she would make herself eat, if only to avoid Mom needling her about her weight and the dangers of anorexia. She selected a sesame seed bagel from the box and took a bite without even splitting it. It might as well have been foam rubber in her mouth for all she could taste of it, but she chewed and she swallowed. It was just a performance for her mother, after all.  
  
And then she saw the program. It had been there on the table next to the box of bagels the whole time, looking so innocuous with its neat sepia script on cream card stock that Annie had mistaken it for a take-out menu. 

 

_In Memoriam_   
_August William Leonhart_   
_January 26th, 1969—August 5th, 2011_

  
Annie’s diaphragm constricted painfully and her throat spasmed in on itself. For a moment she thought she was going to lose the two bites of bagel that were in her stomach, but before that could happen Reiner reached for her hand that was on the table and squeezed it hard. The calming effect was instant but incomplete—her breaths remained heavy and uneven, but at least she wouldn’t vomit.  
  
“It’s going to be okay,” Reiner said, his voice quiet but sure. “Bertolt and I are going to be right beside you the whole time.”  
  
When she replied, it was a bare rasp of sound, almost inaudible. “I know. Thanks.”  
  
He really was amazing, that brother of hers, though it wasn’t the sort of thing she would ever tell him outright. Reiner was an extrovert and an optimist whereas Annie was a loner and a realist. He was naturally buoyant whereas Annie struggled constantly against a world that sought to drown her in its institutionalized phoniness and arbitrary social order. He’d always been like that, albeit it in rough and heedless way in his earlier years, but it wasn’t until Bertolt came into their lives that Reiner’s character crystalized into its present form. Taking their timid, gawky neighbor under his wing had given Reiner a new sense of purpose and made him strong in a way that Annie still couldn’t fully grasp. Even now, having lost his father just four days after his fifteenth birthday and knowing that Dad would never come to one of his varsity football games, his bearing showed no cracks. Reiner was a rock and Annie loved him and hated herself for it. She didn’t want to lean on him or anybody.  
  
—  
  
The graveside service commenced at 11:30 AM beneath a merciless sun pressing down like a branding iron on the attendees in their folding chairs. There was no breeze to wick away the sweat that glazed their faces and an immovable fug of moldy grass trimmings hung over the cemetery like a blanket. Whether or not the temperature had reached the predicted triple-digit threshold was irrelevant; it was as hot as a fucking oven.  
  
There were about twenty guests in attendance, most of them fellow police officers who knew Dad from work, but also Grandma Leonhart, Aunt Kate and Uncle Rob, Mom, Reiner, and Bertolt. Poor awkward Bertolt. Not only was he sweating far more than anyone else—it was falling in droplets the size of jelly beans from his chin and the tip of his nose—but the suit he wore belonged to Reiner so it was loose around the chest while his wrists and ankles extended well beyond the cuffs. The overall effect was entirely too comical for a funeral. Reiner, on the other hand, was the perfectly composed, newly ascended man of the household. His words from breakfast echoed in Annie’s memory like a general’s speech: _“It’s going to be okay.”_  
  
The hole was already dug, the excavated clay mounded beside it, ready to be put back once the wooden box had been lowered into place.  
  
Annie sat between the two boys, melting into her chair as the pastor’s voice droned on about how August Leonhart had served his community Righteously and walked a Godly Path, and how he was now at Peace in Heaven, and other big important words that demanded capitalization. It was such a load of bullshit. Their family never went to church. The pastor, procured from who knows where, was only included as part of the service because that was what you did when someone died. This man hadn’t known Dad, just another cop from a lower-class neighborhood slain in the line of duty as far as he was concerned.  
  
No. That wasn’t Annie’s Dad. Annie’s Dad didn’t believe in Heaven and Hell or things like Divine Justice. He didn’t put his life on the line because it was what Jesus would do or the because Bible told him so. August Leonhart became a cop because, _“the world is a cruel and unfair place and if there is a God, He isn’t intervening.”_ Those were Dad’s exact words to Annie when she’d asked him why he chose to do what he did for a living. _“But I would rather be reminded of that fact every day by seeing it with my own eyes, than live my life in the dark. The only hope any of us has of making the world better starts with seeing the world as it really is.”_  
  
Dad was a realist through and through. Of course, that would never make it into this farce of a memorial service. The pastor claimed—with an infuriating level of conviction on his face—that it was part of God’s Divine Plan™ for Officer Leonhart to be in that convenience store when the two armed robbers made their move. But if the deceased himself could have commented on the events of that day he would have called it a Really Shitty Coincidence™ that he decided he needed a RedBull and a bag of Skittles at that exact moment.  
  
A bolt of pain snaked through Annie’s stomach. It was the first time since the initial shock of Dad’s death that such an acute stab of grief had made it through her shell of numb depression. The corners of her eyes pricked but she held back the tears. Why did remembering the crude and funny things about him hurt worse than the sweet and caring things?  
  
After the pastor finished saying his piece, Mom rose and took his place behind the portable lectern. Her black dress was nearly identical to Annie’s, with the addition of little cap sleeves, and she wore a dainty black silk hat that was held onto her blond hair with bobby pins. She looked ten years older than she had a week ago.  
  
“Thank you all so much for coming,” Mom managed to say before having to grimace back a sob and blot her eyes with a handkerchief. Her voice remained high and just a tiny bit tremulous when she resumed her speech, but she didn’t falter again. “I’m sure that August, my sweet Auggie, would be touched that so many people will remember him with love in their hearts. Now I want to take a few minutes to share with all of you one of my most cherished memories of August, that is, the day when our son was born and we became a family.”  
  
Annie detected a sudden tension to her left, her brother stiffening almost imperceptibly in his seat. It was such a subtle change that nobody else in her place would have even noticed. Well, nobody else besides Bertolt. Reiner must not have known this anecdote was coming either. But it wasn’t just the unexpectedness he was reacting to, it couldn’t be because he remained taught for the duration of the story: from Vanessa telling her darling Auggie he was going to be a father to the newly minted Dad holding his baby boy for the first time and giving him the name Reiner. Annie made a mental note to question him about it later.  
  
There were other stories after that, from other people who had known August Leonhart. His children had both declined the opportunity to speak, but Annie knew this wouldn’t be viewed as cold or uncaring on their parts. They were allowed, expected even, to be too bereaved to share their memories so soon. One of the only benefits of being just a kid when one of your parents died was that you weren’t obligated to do anything but feel like shit. And Annie did that masterfully.  
  
And then, without warning, it was over. Somehow Annie had made it through the service. Now she just had to get through the lunch reception and, following that, the rest of her life.  
  
—  
  
Thankfully she was allowed to change into fresh clothes as soon as she got home—her black dress was so drenched with sweat that it clung to her like a second skin and she had to literally peel it off of her body. She only had time for a five-minute shower, though, before she had to go back out and face the horror of other people once again. Her mind dwelled, with longing, on the last two Percocet in the bottle. No, better to save those.  
  
It was pretty much as awful as she’d anticipated: her aunt and uncle cooing out condolences as if they hadn’t refused each and every invitation to Thanksgiving and Christmas that had been offered for the past decade; leather-faced cops all telling Annie how much she’d grown since they last saw her and how she had her father’s eyes; a table full of casseroles in aluminum and pyrex trays, none identifiable and yet each indistinguishable from the others; Mom saying "thank you" and "thank you" and "thank you," with dewy eyes, as guests told her how moved they were by her story.  
  
That reminded Annie that she wanted to talk to Reiner in private when she got the chance—in private meaning her and Reiner and Bertolt, naturally. A scan of the overpacked apartment found her brother being his personable and enduring self for the crowd, doling out handshakes and even hugs to all who approached him with their sympathy. He effortlessly compensated for Annie’s complete lack of social interest. Bertolt was notably missing—a six-foot tall sweaty teenager would not be hard to spot in this herd—but she figured he was probably still at his apartment, taking a proper shower before he came over. Hopefully his mom wasn’t giving him any trouble.  
  
As if she possessed an olfactory organ that could detect any negative thoughts about mothers, Annie’s sidled up next to her. She inclined her head towards Annie’s and with a cupped hand funneled a harsh whisper into her daughter’s ear. “Annie, couldn’t you have put just a little more effort into making yourself presentable for this? Your hair isn’t even dry. And a denim skirt? He was your _father_ , Annie. Show him some respect.”  
  
Annie seethed. How dare Mom accuse her of not showing respect for Dad. Did she even _know_ her husband? Dad wouldn’t be offended by wet hair or denim. Serving angel food cake—which Dad _detested_ —at this reception was far more disrespectful than anything having to do with Annie’s appearance.  
  
“I didn’t have time to dry my hair and you told me I should wear a skirt.” Annie knew Mom would classify the words that slid out between her teeth as smartass, but compared to the things she wanted to say they were downright cordial. If Mom bit back, though—and of course she would—Annie wasn’t sure she could hold in her vitriol.  
  
Mom’s mouth opened but she didn’t say anything, her retaliation gathering strength before she could release it. Annie steeled herself for whatever was coming. But nothing came. Mom’s mouth closed into a tight frown that Annie couldn’t decipher—it was more disappointment than anger, but there was definitely _some_ anger, not the boiling kind but the low simmering kind. Somehow this was worse than yelling. Annie felt irritated and guilty and wanted to get away as soon as she could. Fortunately, her periphery vision caught Bertolt arriving through the front door. He waved at her.  
  
“I’m going to hang out with Bertl and Reiner now,” Annie said with finality and left to meet Bertolt before Mom had a chance to reply.  
  
His hair was wet, which made it look black as pitch, and he smelled like shampoo. He’d changed into a polo shirt and khaki pants that fit him only slightly better than Reiner’s suit had. It must’ve been hard for him to maintain a decent wardrobe, since he kept on growing like bamboo. That, and the fact that his mother was a deadbeat and a drunk and was loath to give him anything if she could possibly avoid it. “Annie,” he greeted, his face all gentleness. Sweat was already starting to break out on his freshly scrubbed skin.  
  
“Hey Bertl,” she said. “Let’s rescue Reiner from the clutches of hospitality and go out on the balcony.” She wanted to ask, “What’s in the bag?” because she thought it strange that Bertolt had arrived with his school messenger bag tucked under one arm, but she decided it could wait until they were alone.  
  
They found Reiner in the crowd and told him the plan and he said that he would be out in five minutes and they should go ahead. Emerging onto the balcony was like stepping into a great cloud of dragon’s breath, oppressively hot and also faintly sulfurous thanks to the distant refineries belching out their long pendants of contamination. It was no surprise that there wasn’t anybody already out here.  
  
“Wow is it hot,” Bertolt said, sinking down to a sit. The sheen of sweat had spread over his entire face and neck already and Annie felt a pang of guilt for suggesting the location, but she had her reasons.  
  
When Reiner joined them, he was carrying a two-liter bottle of Coca-Cola in one hand and a nested stack of red plastic cups filled at the top with ice in the other. “Fuck, Annie. Why didn’t you just ask us to meet on the actual surface of the sun?”  
  
“This is the only place where we can get any real privacy,” Annie said. “If we hang out in either of our bedrooms, Mom might listen in on us from the other side of the door. But the balcony door is more or less soundproof and nobody in their right mind would come out here and bother us.”  
  
Reiner grunted. “You got that right.” Not being one to dwell on the negative, he added, “But at least the ice and the soda is cold.” He sat down with his back to the door, unstacked the cups, and divvied up the ice between them. Once his hands were empty, he leaned in towards Bertolt and they bumped their knuckles together in an idiotic gesture they referred to as a bro-fist. “Did you bring it?” Reiner asked.  
  
“Bring what?” Annie asked, even though she knew the question wasn’t for her.  
  
Bertolt lifted the flap of his messenger bag and dug out a tall bottle of clear liquid, about three-quarters full, which Annie recognized immediately as liquor and identified from the label as vodka. It was not the high-end stuff with a recognizable brand name and commercials on TV; this was what Dad had called bottom shelf booze.  
  
“Taking it was easier than I thought it would be,” Bertolt said. “My mom was already asleep. She won’t remember if she finished off the bottle or not, and that’s if she even notices it’s gone. I don’t think she can really keep track of them anymore.”  
  
“Okay, hold up,” Annie said. “Since when do you two drink?”  
  
Bertolt smiled in a nervous, self-deprecating sort of way—he was the only person Annie had ever met who could be self-deprecating with just a facial expression—and said, “This will be the first time. You know we wouldn’t do something like that without you. And we’d have told you about the idea beforehand, but it was kind of last minute. I hope you’re not mad.”  
  
Annie could tell from his meek voice and knitted eyebrows that he was genuinely worried she might be mad at him. She wasn’t. Mad wasn’t the right word for what she felt and Bertolt wasn’t the person at whom it was directed. With a frown, she turned to her brother. “Reiner, did you put him up to this?”  
  
“What?” He feigned incredulity at the accusation but quickly explained. “Actually, it was Bertl’s idea. I thought it sounded a little risky, but he thought it was at least worth a try. Like he said when he suggested it, if ever there was a day to have our first real tastes of alcohol, this is it.”  
  
“I can’t really argue with that,” said Annie, unsure if it was Bertolt’s sentiment or Reiner’s sensible presentation that swayed her, or if she’d really needed swaying in the first place. “Okay, I’m in.” She sat down so the three of them formed a neat triangle with their plastic cups of ice and liter of Coke and three-quarters of a bottle of third-rate vodka in the middle. “So who’s pouring?”  
  
Seconds passed in swelling silence and Annie became suddenly very aware of how young they all were. Then she remembered New Year’s Eve. She remembered Dad telling her she could have a glass of champagne and she remembered Mom adamantly and unsmilingly refusing to let her have even the tiniest sip. Mom’s veto power was absolute. And that was all it took to spur Annie into picking up the bottle herself, unscrewing the cap and tipping a generously estimated shot of vodka into each of cup.  
  
“I guess I’ll add the soda,” Reiner said as he uncapped the bottle of Coke and filled their cups to the brims. “Bottoms up. I guess.”  
  
Annie eyed the drink dubiously, watching as the last lingering chips of ice circled on the filmy surface and shrank before her eyes. She took her first sip as the boys took theirs and nearly gagged when it filled her mouth. The stuff tasted vile and when she swallowed it felt like a tendril of fire reaching down her esophagus. At least Reiner and Bertolt didn’t enjoy it either, both of them grimacing as they swallowed—Bertolt actually looked like he was going to choke his back up, but managed to force it down with watering eyes.  
  
“Ugh,” Reiner grunted. “Why do people actually like this shit?”  
  
“I have no idea,” Annie answered, but the memory of the nastiness was already fading and she felt an inexplicable urge to take another taste. A pleasant tingling radiated from where the first sip had pooled in her stomach and she thought it might feel even better if she added more to it. She decided to wait. Talk first. “So Reiner, what was going on with you when Mom told that story?”  
  
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he said.  
  
Annie rolled her eyes. “Yes you do. Seriously, I don’t know why you even try lying to me, you’re terrible at it. I’m talking about how you were clenched up for the whole Baby Reiner story. Like you were crushing walnuts in your ass or something. And it wasn’t just embarrassment. I can read you better than you think, dear brother, and that was not embarrassment.”  
  
Reiner set down his cup, smoothed both palms up his sweat-slick face and raked all ten fingers through his bristling gold hair. He kept his eyes down as he spoke. “I guess there’s no sense in keeping it a secret any longer. Might as well just tell you. The reason that story made me uncomfortable was because it wasn’t true. It wasn’t true because Dad wasn’t my biological father.” He looked up, meeting Annie’s stare with a wistful half-smile, but offered no further comments, as if what he’d just said was a complete and satisfactory explanation.  
  
“What?” she said and repeated it. “ _What?_ Who told you that? When?”  
  
“Nobody told me,” he answered, infuriatingly calm. “I saw it on my birth certificate. It was years ago—actually, it was the same day Bertl jumped over to our balcony. I saw my birth certificate and it had Mom’s maiden name. But Dad’s name wasn’t on it.”  
  
“Whose name _was_ on it?” Annie spat out the words; she hadn’t intended to, but her brain could barely parse the muddle of shock-confusion-anger-betrayal she felt into intelligible words, let alone assign proper elocution to them. “If Dad isn’t your dad... _Who?_ ”  
  
He lifted the muscled bulk of his shoulders in a distinctly masculine shrug. “I don’t know. The place where my father’s name should have been was blank. I have no father. I’m Reiner Braun.”  
  
Annie’s throat stung as it tightened to repress a wail and when she managed to speak her voice came out high and strained. “That can’t be true. You can’t not be my real brother.”  
  
“I’m still your half-brother,” he said, not merely calm but _smiling_ now, practically _laughing_ over the situation. Or was he laughing at her?  
  
Annie gaped at him. “You think this is _funny?_ ”  
  
“I don’t think it’s funny,” he said, “just kind of amusing. I mean, don’t most people grow up thinking their families are boring and without secrets and nothing like the families on TV and in movies? It turns out ours is actually pretty interesting.”  
  
“ _Interesting?_ ” Annie asked. “Aren’t you even a little pissed off? Mom has been lying to us about this our whole lives! She shared the lie with her husband’s friends and family at his own funeral! She cried for fucks sake! And you think it’s _interesting?_ You think it's _amusing?_ ”  
  
“It was an emotional story,” Reiner said. “And it made people happy to hear it.” His smile turned wistful again and he added more softly. “It made me happy to hear it.”  
  
The next contentious remark Annie had lined up was arrested by his gentled expression. He really meant it; she never would have guessed from the way he’d tensed up at its telling, but Reiner cherished the fiction of his birth that their mother had presented. Like a blazing firelog that gutters out and leaves a ghost of glowing ash, the intensity of a few seconds ago collapsed into a moment of intimacy between siblings so fragile that Annie was afraid she might say the wrong thing and it would turn to dust. Delicately—very delicately—she said, “You didn’t seem happy.”  
  
“I was just surprised to hear it is all,” Reiner responded. His voice was bare and honest. “I hadn’t even thought about it in such a long time. I was so little when I found out, I didn’t really know what to do with that knowledge. Mom and—well, I just kept thinking of him as Dad—they already knew the truth about me, of course, so I saw no reason to let them know that I knew. It would have made things weird and I just wanted things to be like they’d always been. And they were, but better because we got Bertolt. Honestly, I’ve put it behind me.”  
  
“Why didn’t you tell me then?” Annie asked in a raw whisper.  
  
“Maybe I should have and for that I am sorry, Annie. But you’re my little sister and I didn’t want to make you sad. Even now it’s difficult. I hate how upset this is making you. I thought that it would be okay to tell you today since this day can’t really get any worse, but...”  
  
“No,” Annie said, pressing a palm to his shoulder. “I’m glad you told me. And... I can see why you liked Mom’s version of the story. I just...” Her voice cracked from the pressure of her emotions and she had to pause. “You were my big brother, Reiner.”  
  
“I still am,” he said. “As much as I ever was.”  
  
“Half’s not enough.” Annie heard how irrational her own words were but they kept coming out of her mouth. “If there was no name on your birth certificate, that means your father could be any man, right? And if you father could be any man, couldn’t he be August Leonhart as easily as anyone else?”  
  
The look Reiner gave her was sympathetic, mournful. “Annie,” he said softly. “He’s wasn’t my father.”  
  
Silence.  
  
And then, “If it makes you feel any better, he wasn’t my father either.”  
  
Annie and Reiner both turned to look at Bertolt, who had miraculously reappeared, along with the rest of the world, from wherever they’d vanished to during the private brother-sister interlude. His pensive face gave no indication that he’d meant his comment to be funny, but that just made it more funny as far as Annie was concerned. She let herself smile just a tiny smile. “That is a valid point, Bertolt.”  
  
His cheeks flashed pink beneath the glaze of sweat. “No, what I mean is, well...” He paused and averted his eyes to the floor shyly, something he hadn’t done in front of Annie and Reiner in years. “Mr. Leonhart saved me. That day when I first met you... I don’t know what he said to my mom when he went over to talk to her that day, but he got me out of there when I most needed it. I mean I... I love my mom, of course. I do. But for a few hours every day I got to be a part of your family, and that means more to me than I even know how to say. Your dad _wasn’t_ my father, but... he kind of was, you know.”  
  
Silence again.  
  
And then Reiner raised his plastic cup and gave an approving nod. “Well said, Bertolt. To August Leonhart, the best Dad any of us ever had.”  
  
Bertolt and Annie raised their cups as well and in unison the three said, “Cheers!” And then they drank again.  
  
The second sip scorched down the same path to Annie’s stomach that the first had. The third tasted milder. The fourth sip was more of a gulp. And the fifth drained the cup. Her head felt light and a little dizzy, like she’d stood up too fast. She wasn’t sure if she liked it or not, but it wasn’t awful. Whatever else the alcohol did, it dammed up the floodwaters of emotion that otherwise would have swept her away and drowned her. There were so many things she wasn’t ready to feel yet. There were so many things to talk about, too, but Reiner’s invocation of the toast had effectively put a pin in them and that pin would remain in place until one of them dared to pull it out. So not anytime soon.  
  
They talked about jerks at school instead. They relived silvery winter days spent rolling around in the snow until their faces were red and numb, and close encounters with Brutus the doberman in the park that still made their hearts race. They said “fuck” and “fucking” and “fucker” with the singular zeal of adolescents, because they were alone and they could. They drank and they laughed and they dripped with sweat.  
  
After her second drink, which she made considerably weaker than the first, Annie felt buzzed—and she understood, for the first time, how apt that term was—so on the third round she refilled her cup with just Coke. It was tepid from sitting out in the sun. “Fuck, we need more ice,” she said and reached for the guardrail to pull herself up to her feet.  
  
“Sit back down, lightweight,” Reiner told her. He’d consumed more vodka than she had but didn’t sound the least bit altered, and when he stood up he didn’t wobble, which didn’t really seem fair. “I’ll go get the ice,” he said. “And I’ll check in with Mom so she knows we’re okay. Maybe make another circuit around the room while I’m at it. You two introverts can just relax.”  
  
“Thanks,” Annie said as he slipped into the apartment, off to save the day again with his superior social skills.  
  
She sat back down next to Bertolt, close enough so that their knees just touched. If he weren’t marinating in perspiration, she might have sat closer and leaned against him, because she didn’t particularly feel like holding herself upright on her own at the moment, but in his present condition, she was afraid she might adhere to him. She didn’t say anything and that was okay. One of the best things about Bertolt Hoover was that he never made her feel like she needed to talk if she didn’t have anything to say or just didn't want to. Such a simple thing, to be comfortably quiet around another person, and yet surprisingly rare.  
  
At some point in the future they would talk about the truth bomb Reiner had detonated, but not now. The debris was still settling, the radiation soaking into their bodies to seed cancers that wouldn’t manifest for years. When it came time to talk about it, they both would know.  
  
After a minute or so, Bertolt began to sing, sotto voce: “Today is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back to you. By now, you should’ve somehow realized what you gotta do. I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now.”  
  
This was the first time Annie had heard him sing since his voice had dropped a year ago and the sound was unexpectedly sweet. She closed her eyes and listened to the next few lines, waited for him to pause before she asked, “Throwback Thursday?”  
  
Bertolt gave a light chuckle. “Yeah. It was the song that was playing when my alarm went off. It’s been stuck in my head all day.”  
  
“I guess we woke up at the same time then,” said Annie. “You know, Bertl, your voice is actually pretty decent. Have you thought about being in the school choir?”  
  
This time Bertolt’s laugh had a wry inflection. “Heh. Thanks, but I don’t think the students of Angel Altonen High School will need another reason to think I’m a loser.”  
  
“Oh please,” said Annie. “As Golden Boy’s best friend I don’t think you have anything to worry about. He’s already established a solid fanbase as a freshman, and now that he’s made the varsity football team... Well, some of that popularity is bound to transfer to you.” She wasn’t sure if this claim was actually comforting or if it was even true, but she did know that her brother—no, her _half_ -brother—would always put Bertolt before everyone else except for her, and he absolutely would not allow anybody to make fun of or bully either one of them.  
  
“I wish you weren’t stuck in junior high for another year,” Bertolt said and sighed. “It would be so much better if we could all be at the same school.”  
  
“I’ll join you soon enough,” she said. Weariness was starting to creep into her voice. Now that the novelty of inebriation had worn off, she decided that she did not like it at all. The vodka did not truly hold back her emotions, it merely dulled her processing of them. Alcohol, she now realized, was not so much a dam as a smokescreen, and a less efficient one than Percocet since its intoxicating effects were already starting to dissipate, leaving a headache and a sour stomach in their wake.  
  
Bringing up the impending start of a new school year only reminded her that time marched ever onward; it wouldn’t stop just because Dad was gone forever or because Reiner wasn’t her full-blooded brother or because Mom was a self-serving liar. Time didn’t give a shit about any of that.  
  
She wished she could just break down and sob. Or scream. But it wouldn’t make any difference.  
  
“When you do, I’ll look out for you,” Bertolt said, pulling her back out of her head. “I know that must sound really stupid since you’ve got a shelf full of trophies in every kind of ass-kicking and should probably be the one looking out for me. But...” He paused, as if mustering courage or trying to think of the right words, and then said, “Even if I’m not very strong or cool, I’m still a man, and I...”  
  
Whatever he was going to say after that would not get said because Reiner had returned, not with a cup of ice, but with the entire bowl of ice that had been set out on the buffet table next to the assorted bottles of soft drinks. “Here you go,” he said and dumped out the bowl on top of Annie and Bertolt’s heads.  
  
Annie’s spine bowed when the slush hit her and she and Bertolt yelped in unison. It actually felt wonderfully refreshing after the first split-second of shock, but that didn’t stop her from retaliating. “You asshole!” she snarled as she scooped a handful of ice chips off her skirt and hurled them at her brother.  
  
Reiner was barking out laughter and barely flinched at her weak counterattack.  
  
Astounding. Here was her brother, playing and grinning and teasing just shortly after revealing an immense, deeply personal secret. And on the day of Dad’s funeral no less—biological father or not, August Leonhart had raised Reiner as his own and Annie _knew_ that the love between them was real in both directions.  
  
The simplest conclusion was that Reiner truly was a resilient soul, a real life tough-it-out Comeback Kid. That, or he was actually much drunker than he’d initially appeared. But Annie didn’t think it was either. She’d been watching his face closely when he told her he’d put the shock of his discovery behind him and she could tell that it was a lie, the only one he’d told in the entire conversation. He’d put the mess somewhere, but not behind him; behind implied that it got smaller and smaller as the past got farther away and this was something he carried around with him like a wheeled suitcase. It was almost like he’d split his heart in two. One heart held his pain and his sorrow and the truth that was too much to bear. This heart he tried to lock up, but still he towed it with him. His new heart was strong, fortified by a mythic childhood like the one in Mom’s story, because it had to be strong to keep the other one suppressed.  
  
Reiner stooped to pick up the vodka bottle, which had been depleted to a thin residue. “Wow, you guys really went to town,” he said. “I had three shots, tops.”  
  
“I had less than two,” said Annie. “My second drink barely had a splash of the stuff.” She and Reiner both turned to look at Bertolt.  
  
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I knocked over the bottle when we were all caught up talking. By the time I noticed, half had spilled out.”  
  
Annie tasted a lie but decided to let it slide. Bertolt didn’t appear to be sloppy drunk so it might have actually been true. “We should probably all drink a lot of water,” she said. "I read online that you should always drink water after alcohol."  
  
They didn’t stay outside much longer. When they went back into the apartment, the three of them together, the guests had all left.  
  
“I call first shower,” Reiner said.  
  
“Think I’ll go next door and grab one myself,” said Bertolt.  
  
 _Traitors_ , Annie thought, though she knew that their abandonment wasn’t meant to be malicious. They had no idea how anxious the idea of spending fifteen minutes alone with Mom made her feel.  
  
Mom was in the kitchen, tying closed a big black trash bag that was bulging with the membraned outlines of disposable cups and plates. Maybe if Annie just went about her business and didn’t speak a word Mom would leave her alone. She took a large tumbler out of the cabinet and filled it with water from the tap, drained it with one continuous gulp, and refilled it. Once she’d consumed enough water that she didn’t think she could fit even one more drop in her stomach, she went to gather up the leftover food containers that were still out on the table. Mom really shouldn’t have to clean up all by herself.  
  
“So _now_ you’re pitching in,” Mom said with a whiff of disdain. “Oh I do appreciate the help, dear, but I wish you’d been more willing to cooperate during the reception. Everyone kept asking me where you were hiding and I had to tell them you weren’t feeling well.”  
  
Annie stayed silent a moment, deliberating whether or not she should say anything. “I was just out on the balcony with the guys. If you’d needed me, you could have dragged me back inside. I don’t really see what my presence would have brought to the party, anyways.”  
  
“It was not a party,” Mom said. She was standing right behind Annie now. “And I don’t think I should have to _drag_ you into making a proper appearance at your father’s funeral reception. You aren’t a little kid anymore, Annie, and you have to stop acting so selfish all the time.”  
  
Annie dropped the pyrex casserole dish that was in her hands and it hit the table with loud, ceramic thunk.  
  
“Annie!” Mom said sharply.  
  
“ _I_ act selfish all the time?” Annie said as she turned to glare at her mother. By now the dull ache behind her eyes had grown into an unrelenting, skull-filling throb and feeling terrible made it easier to say terrible things. “Well I’m so sorry I wasn’t flittering around the party making chit-chat with a bunch of strangers. I’m not exactly a social fucking butterfly, Mom. Oh yeah, and did I mention my Dad just _died_?”  
  
Mom’s nostril’s flared and she pointed a finger aggressively towards her daughter. “You watch your mouth, missy.” She paused and sniffed loudly. Her mouth fell open, aghast. “Is that _alcohol_ on your breath? Annie Elisabeth Leonhart, have you been _drinking?_ ” The horror in her voice made it sound like an offense on par with making blood sacrifices to Satan by moonlight.  
  
“No,” Annie lied. She couldn’t believe that Mom really caught the scent of liquor, not after washing it down with so much water. Plus she was cloaked in the masking perfume of perspiration. “We only drank Coke.”  
  
“You’d better not be lying to me,” Mom said sternly. “I am dead serious, young lady, if I ever find out you’ve been drinking while you’re still underage, you will be in serious trouble. You don’t want to end up like Bertolt’s mother, do you?”  
  
“No,” Annie muttered. Her contempt for Mrs. Hoover was as deep and complete as it was possible to feel for someone who had never, at least as far as Annie knew, inflicted physical injury on another person. But for Mom to use Mrs. Hoover as a cautionary example, as if she, Vanessa Leonhart, were some paragon of virtue, was a travesty. What a hypocrite. “Are you done screaming at me over nothing now? Can I go be unhappy in my room or do I have to listen to another excoriation first?”  
  
“Don’t you use that tone of voice with me, young lady,” Mom said. “I am sick and tired of this moody loner crap you’ve been pulling since your father passed away. It’s got to stop, Annie. You aren’t the only one who loved him and you aren’t the only one who’ll miss him. You lost your Dad? Well, Grandma lost her son. Aunt Kate lost her little brother. All of those police officers lost their friend and coworker. I lost my husband. Why can't you follow your brother’s example? Reiner hasn’t been acting like some gloomy shut-in and he lost his father, too.”  
  
Annie’s eyes locked onto Mom’s, which were hazel like Reiner’s. She felt like she was staring into the barrel of a loaded gun, but she refused to look away or even blink. With the tip of her tongue she moistened her lips, slid them apart and said, “Did he _really?_ ”  
  
As soon as the question landed, Mom’s eyes went wide, an instantaneous reaction so primal Annie couldn’t tell if it would resolve into fury or sorrow or something else entirely. The soft pop of the bathroom door opening rescued her from finding out.  
  
“Shower’s all yours,” Reiner said as he stepped out amid a miasma of steam. His head was bowed and draped with a towel, which he was vigorously working into his hair so he didn’t sense the tension in the living room until he looked up and beheld the two women. He froze in place. “Uhh... Did I interrupt something?”  
  
“No,” Annie said brusquely. “I was just telling Mom that I thought the service and reception were both perfect and would’ve made Dad proud.” She didn’t leave any time for Mom or Reiner to respond, didn’t make eye contact with either of them, just walked straight to the bathroom and closed the door behind her.  
  
Her heart was a bouncing frog in her chest. She could hardly believe what she’d just done. She had looked Mom squarely in the eyes and said, in her own way, “I know your secret.” It was one of those unpremeditated, heat-of-the-moment utterances, but once she released it, it couldn’t be taken back. As the water rained down on her, sluicing away the brackish remains of the day, Annie’s mind started to clear as well. She understood now, that even if Reiner hadn’t interrupted, Mom wouldn’t have engaged her on the topic. Mom would never ask Annie how she knew; in all likelihood, Mom would act as if the confrontation had never happened. But she and Annie would both know that it had. There was an invisible wall between them now. Not that they’d ever had that special mother-daughter bond that other women did—Dad was always the one who truly got Annie. But Dad was gone and she’d given Mom the final shove away from her. Reiner felt like half a stranger and even Bertolt was leaving her behind, even if it was only for a year at a different school.  
  
Even surrounded by other people, Annie was, essentially, alone.  
  
She got out of the shower, dressed in shorts and one of Dad’s old t-shirts, and left the safety of the bathroom. Mom was nowhere to be seen and the door to her bedroom was closed. Annie felt only relief. Bertolt was on the couch, fast asleep or passed out despite how uncomfortable it must be to have his feet dangling over one of the arms. Reiner was tucking an afghan around him and didn’t react to Annie’s presence. He paused next to Bertolt’s sleeping face and reached down a hand to stroke his dark hair. It was an act so private and tender that Annie felt a small flush in her cheeks, like she was witnessing a stolen kiss.  
  
“Annie,” Reiner breathed, finally noticing she was there. He looked stunned and embarrassed and Annie wondered, idly, if her brother was homosexual. She hadn’t considered it before but found that the possibility didn’t surprise her at all. Actually, it made a lot more sense than him _not_ being homosexual.  
  
“I’m going to go to bed,” she said.  
  
He gave her a look of concern. “Are you gonna be okay, Annie? I mean, not just tonight, but from now on?”  
  
She thought about the question for only a second and said, “I’ll be fine, Reiner. Seriously, you don’t need to worry about me.” He still would, of course, but she didn’t need it. “Make sure he drinks plenty of water,” she added, indicating Bertolt with a bob of her chin.  
  
“I will. Goodnight, Annie.”  
  
“Goodnight, Reiner.”  
  
The worst day of Annie Leonhart’s life—well, the worst so far—was drawing to a close. She retrieved her iPod from under a pile of laundry on her floor, put the headphones over her ears, and found _Wonderwall_ on her 1990s playlist. Then she lay back on her bed and closed her eyes. After the first verse, she realized that she couldn’t enjoy the original after hearing Bertolt’s superior rendition and searched for a different track. Something newer.  
  
 _“I remember what it’s like, to be a victim almost every night. And no one knows or really cares, what you’re drinking or the clothes we wear”_  
  
Outside her window, a rind of moon had risen and enough of it’s light came through the blinds to pick out protruding points on her many trophies and transmute them into gleaming platinum. She would leave them out and would keep going to the classes and tournaments, not for Dad but for herself, because she remembered that she had once enjoyed martial arts.  
  
Mom was right, she was a very selfish person. But selfishness was the best protection she had at her disposal. Unlike her brother, Annie couldn’t be strong for somebody else’s sake. Not anymore. She couldn’t split her heart in two as Reiner had done to become what others needed him to be—or what he thought Bertolt needed him to be. All Annie could do was take care of herself, encase her heart in the impenetrable armor of selfishness. But hers would be an undemanding form of selfishness; she would ask nothing of others and they would seek nothing from her in return.  
  
From this day forward, Annie Leonhart would cling to nobody.


End file.
